What Fusco Found
by apprentice wordsmith
Summary: Finch sends Detective Fusco to search Steven Carroll's home. A missing scene from my story A Stalking in Connecticut. Please read that one first. Rating is because Fusco gets a little blasphemous when he's grumpy and because Carroll is a screwed-up bastard.


Author's note: So, this little piece came to me out of the blue, but I couldn't quite find the appropriate spot to shoehorn it into A Stalking in Connecticut. If you want to read in (roughly) chronological order, this takes place sometime after chapter one of ASIC and before the halfway point of chapter three. Enjoy!

What Fusco Found

Fusco grumbled loudly as he drove through the city. He had a date that night, for Christ's sake! If Mr. Good News needed this house searched so badly, why couldn't he have called someone else, or at least given him a little warning?

It wasn't that he minded helping people. If this girl Dakota was being stalked, he'd much rather catch the bastard responsible before she ended up dead. Less paperwork. But, really, this was getting ridiculous. First he had been keeping tabs on Carter, then he was checking up on HR. When Mr. Tall, Dark, and Intimidating asked him to track down Mr. Glasses, Fusco only agreed because he figured that would be the last project he would do for the man.

Yeah, right. He should have known better. Glasses didn't know that Fusco had become Wonderboy's personal errand-runner, so he didn't have any qualms about dumping another mess in the detective's lap. Not that either one cared if Lionel was feeling over-worked and under-appreciated.

But it felt good to possibly prevent a murder, instead of investigating one, so when The Professor called just as Fusco was getting out of the shower, he agreed to go to the address and search the stalker's house. Rhonda had agreed to postpone their date to the next evening, though she sounded disappointed that they wouldn't see each other on New Year's Day. Fusco never understood why women attached so much importance to holidays. Most of them were just days like any other, and the rest were a way for the greeting card companies to make money.

Before Fusco could get too worked up over the various injustices of the universe, his phone rang. In between finding a parking spot near Mr. Carroll's house, narrowly avoiding a couple of jaywalkers, and cursing people with bad timing, he answered it. Of course, it was The Professor.

"Detective, have you reached Mr. Carroll's house yet?" Fusco rolled his eyes, but tried to keep a lid on the snark. Mr. Sunshine would be less than thrilled if Fusco annoyed the boss-man too much, and Lionel had no intention of getting shot again by his new best friend.

"Just got here. You got any details on exactly what I'm looking for?"

"As I told you, Mr. Carroll is stalking a woman named Dakota Mason. I need to know where he is and how he plans to harm her. I've sent you a photo of Miss Mason. Look to see if it matches anything in the house."

Fusco glanced down at the screen. He still hadn't gotten used to the idea that his phone was more powerful than his computer. Call him old-school, but phones were for talking to people, not surfing the internet or taking photos.

"Pretty girl," he said, as he walked up the front steps. It was true. She wasn't a supermodel or anything, but Dakota Mason looked like a nice young lady, mid-twenties, long gold-ish hair and a bright smile.

The house had a security code, but Glasses had already done his magic, and Fusco only had to punch in the numbers he was given. Wishing he had more back up than a guy on the other end of a phone line, Fusco drew his gun and stepped into the house.

"The house should be empty, but please don't dawdle." Glasses said. Probably spying on everything though the security camera out front. Fusco took a quick look in each room, just in case. Everything was utterly normal at first glance: eat-in kitchen, living room, upstairs bedroom. All were reasonably neat and clean, though it was clearly the house of a single man. There were gym shoes in the middle of the hallway and that day's breakfast dishes still in the sink, but no sign that this guy was planning to hurt anyone, much less kill a girl who'd dumped him a year ago.

All of this was relayed through the phone to Glasses, who seemed unimpressed.

"Detective, there must be something. Have you found his computer? Any photographs of Miss Mason?"

"Hang on, hang on. There's one more room upstairs. Let me take a look." As he spoke, Fusco opened the door to the other room and stopped.

"Sweet chocolate Jesus!" Fusco just managed to avoid dropping an f-bomb within earshot of Glasses. But, if anything in this house was worthy of four letter words, this room was it. Trying to suppress his aversion to the whole idea, he stepped into the room.

It was a shrine to Dakota Mason. A creepy shrine.

The walls were plastered with pictures of the girl; it looked like Carroll had pulled a lot of them off the internet, since there was a mix of posed and candid shots. They were even taped up over the windows and on the ceiling. Carroll also had a fondness for Photoshop; Fusco counted at least a dozen pictures of different bodies, all with Dakota's head. There was a long golden wig draped over a bust that had Dakota's face on it and a pile of women's clothing, probably stuff that Carroll had swiped from the girl's closet. A bouquet of roses lay on the desk, with a tag that said, 'For my darling Dakota, from your true love'.

Fusco had hoped for a moment to gather his senses before he had to tell The Professor about all this, but no luck. "Detective, what did you find?"

"I think this guy's trying to start a new religion. The Church of Dakota. There's pictures of her everywhere. Oh, and I found his computer. Give me a minute." He powered up the laptop, trying to avoid the Dakota-related debris scattered everywhere. It wasn't the goriest, or the most perverted dungeon he'd ever seen, but it was one of the most intense, like this guy had no interest in anything but his victim.

The computer contained more pictures of the girl, and rather disturbingly, more than a few audio recordings of what sounded like phone calls. They mostly consisted of Dakota answering the phone, Carroll asking her something nonsensical, and her hanging up.

There was also a program that looked like a daily planner. Fusco opened it to find a log of the girl's movements. It was insanely detailed, with records of hundreds of emails, phone conversations, and the girl's day mapped out to the second. Today was 'polo practice, UConn, 7pm', among other things. It was circled and emboldened, obviously important to Carroll. Fusco wasn't quite sure what that meant, but Carroll thought it was worth remembering.

This whole place gave him the creeps, so as soon as Fusco had filled Glasses in on the contents of the planner, he shut off the computer and left the room. He carefully closed the door behind him, as if he could erase the memory of Carroll's obsession by closing it off from the world. The rest of the house now took on an eerie feeling, now that Fusco knew the outwardly normal façade was just a mask for Carroll's twisted interest in this poor girl.

"So, what's the plan? I'm guessing our mutual friend is out looking for this creep-o, or he'd be doing this instead of me, but what do you want me to do?"

"Go home, Detective. The situation is under control. Someone will let you know how it turns out." And with that, the phone went dead. Fusco sighed and headed down the stairs. He knew better than to ask questions. If the situation was in hand, it was in hand. And frankly, he didn't want to spend any more time in Steven Carroll's little fantasy world than he had to.

As Fusco drove home, he pondered his options. It might be a good idea to leave the evening free and clear, just in case Blue Eyes got himself in some kind of trouble. But, then again, Blue Eyes was way out in Connecticut; Fusco couldn't do much to help him, even if there was a problem. With that thought, he smiled and picked up the phone. Maybe he would get to see Rhonda on New Year's Day.

oOoOoOo

Author's note: Well, I'm not sure how much it added to the actual story, but I kind of enjoyed writing Fusco's POV. I love the combination of world-weariness and snarky humor that he brings to the POI universe. You might have guessed that I get a kick out of his nicknaming tendencies, too. Let me know if you liked it, as I'm still practicing writing the 'voice' of each character.


End file.
